


hear it in the silence

by iridescentOracle (iridescentOwl)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: (technically; set towards the end of Bitty's senior year), (which is a tag and i am delighted), Angst, Anxiety, Autistic Jack Zimmermann, Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Mentions of Taylor Swift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 15:12:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10901934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentOwl/pseuds/iridescentOracle
Summary: Anxiety dreams are always bad, but the worst are the ones that feel like memories afterwards. It’s hard, sometimes, shaking them off and remembering what's actually real.





	hear it in the silence

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: …anxiety. (Spoiler alert: it was a dream.)
> 
> Thanks to [Sarah](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mutuisanimis/pseuds/mutuisanimis) for being a delightful beta/wonderful friend.

Jack rolls over, and the blanket comes untucked, letting cold air in. His shirt is riding up, twisted around him, which doesn’t help. He rolls back, which helps with the temperature and the shirt, but now he’s positioned awkwardly again. Most of Jack wants to go back to sleep, but enough of his mind is awake enough now to remember he hadn't turned his alarm on.

He rolls further to the right and sits up, albeit reluctantly, slowly opening his eyes. It’s not as bright as he was expecting, and he opens his eyes a little more. Only the lamp on the nightstand is on, which is strange, because he remembers turning all the lights on for some reason, after— 

But he doesn’t remember getting up and going to bed anyway, so maybe he turned the rest of them off between being in the kitchen and somehow making it to his room. He stands up, and the comforter falls to the floor. Whatever. He’s coming back in just a minute.

…Jack picks the blanket up and put it back on the bed. He only half-folds it, though, and not neatly. His alarm is across the room, which always seems farther at the crack of dawn when he’s stumbling out of bed to turn it off than it does during the day. Apparently whatever time it is now—eleven, maybe? Midnight? He doesn’t think it was that late when he got back to his apartment, but who knows how long he was asleep.

The alarm is already set after all. Fine. Good. Back to bed. Except Jack is awake enough now to register quiet noise in the living room, which is also strange. He is… fairly certain that regardless of the state of the lights, the TV was off? And he _knows_ he didn’t have anyone over, knows he came home alone after—

He doesn’t want to think about it, but he can’t stop the images replaying in his head, the way—the hollow feeling still in Jack’s chest now as he walked around the apartment after—can’t stop remembering the sound of Bitty’s voice catching, unless it’s not a memory, but he doesn’t _know_ , and he needs to, now, can’t fall asleep again until he knows one way or the other whether it was real, or whether he was just dreaming. He reaches for the wall, not leaning against it but just feeling it there, solid and real and grounding, and pushes the door the rest of the way open with his other hand.

The hallway seems longer than usual, like the walk from his bed to the alarm, and Jack wonders if it’s the lack of light or that he’s only half-awake. Could be either. The wall is cold and smooth, except for the dent Jack’s fingers catch on briefly, where Holster accidentally tripped and slammed it with the corner of a textbook from sophomore year, trying to ask why Jack even still _had_ that anymore.

The lights _are_ mostly off, including in the living room. The ceiling fan in the living room is off, too, but the TV is on with the volume low. Some contestant is worrying about running out of time to plate her dish. Jack comes slightly closer to the end of the hall, and the top of Bitty’s head is just visible on the arm of the couch. Some of the tension he’d mostly forgotten was there drains out of Jack’s body, his shoulders loosening, and he takes a deep breath.

He turns off the TV, first. (He notices the remote lying next to Bitty’s hand only after he’s already pressed the button on the TV itself and turned back towards the couch, but there’s a reason that button is there, and it could have taken longer trying to find the remote than just using that—for all he knew, Bitty could have fallen asleep on top of it. Not that he’d looked, but still.) The room is even quieter, now; the loudest sound left is Bitty’s quiet breathing, and Jack thinks momentarily about just… letting him sleep there. Sitting down, leaning against the side of the couch, falling back asleep right here.

He shouldn’t, though; that would be bad for his back and his neck, and if he leaves Bitty here, Bitty’s neck won’t thank him in the morning, either. He reaches out, leaning down just enough to touch Bitty’s arm gently with two fingers. Bitty doesn’t stir, so Jack lightly lays his whole hand first on Bitty’s arm, then moves up his arm to Bitty’s shoulder instead.

“Bits?” he asks, quiet, because speaking too loud feels wrong, even if he is actually trying to wake Bitty up. His voice is scratchier than he expects. “Bitty.”

Bitty frowns in his sleep, mumbles something indistinct. Jack smiles a little, pulling his hand away and breathing easier with every second that passes as the dream—anxiety dream, nightmare, whatever—fades in favor of his actual evening. “Bitty. _Bittle_. Wake up.”

Bitty rolls away, curling into the couch slightly. Jack puts his hand back on Bitty’s arm.

“Bitty. You can’t sleep on the couch. C’mere.” Bitty does not _c’mere_ ; Bitty mumbles something that sounds like “can so” and remains exactly where he is. “ _Bits_.” A little part of Jack still feels like he doesn’t get to call Bitty that anymore, but if Bitty is asleep on the couch in the living room then he almost definitely did _not_ break up with Jack earlier tonight, which means Jack is still allowed to after all. “If you don’t get up, I’m carrying you there.”

Bitty says something which might be _fine_ or possibly _I’m…_ with no elaboration on what he is. Aside from asleep, obviously. And presumably still Jack’s boyfriend.

“Well. Fine,” Jack says—or says back, if that _is_ what Bitty said. He slides his arms slowly underneath Bitty, one under his shoulders and one under his knees, giving Bitty plenty of time to realize what’s happening even while mostly asleep, and carefully lifts him up. Jack stands up, shifting Bitty’s weight (because Bitty is not a large person but he’s still an athlete, he’s got muscle) so he’s easier to carry, and slowly walks back down the hall.

Once they’re there, Jack places Bitty on the bed in an upright position. Bitty immediately attempts to fall over sideways, but Jack catches him before he can actually do so. “Can’t sleep in those, Bits.”

“…Can so,” Bitty says, petulantly, but he starts taking off his shirt as Jack turns away to get his pajamas out of the drawer. Well. _Their_ pajamas, both; Jack wasn’t exactly intending to fall asleep in the middle of his book any more than Bitty was on the couch. Speaking of which… he puts both sets of pajamas on the bed and looks around, and finds it lying on the floor. Closed, luckily, and when he flips through none of the pages look bent.

He turns around, and finds Bitty (now actually in pajamas) crawling under the covers significantly faster than he should be able to move based on how asleep he’s clearly mostly just pretending to still be at this point. Jack laughs softly. Bitty makes a grumpy sound, but scoots over to make room.

“Did you brush your teeth?” Jack asks, and Bitty makes a _louder_ grumpy sound.

Jack waits. A moment passes. “…Yes,” says Bitty.

Jack himself has not. By the time he is back, Bitty appears to be asleep again. Jack smiles. He changes quietly, and tries not to disturb Bitty getting into bed. No point in waking him a second time. He leaves a little space between them—the dream is still in the back of his mind, hard to shake completely even as sure as he is now that it _was_ a dream. Besides, Bitty was asleep enough that actually he might be legitimately a little annoyed, even if it was mostly exaggerated—but Bitty interrupts that train of thought with a barely intelligible mumble.

“Ugh, j’st c’ _mere_ ,” says Bitty, this time, and he more or less buries his face in Jack’s shirt. Jack brings one arm up over and around Bitty, and falls asleep with the last of the tension in his chest fading away.

* * *

In the morning, Jack half-remembers the dream still, but more having had it and being unsure whether it was a dream or not than the dream itself. Judging by the smell of breakfast on the stove, Jack feels fairly safe in thinking it was definitely a dream.

Jack glances at the door. Just barely audible from the kitchen, he can hear two voices singing “… _and I said, ‘stay, stay, stay’_ …” though the accompanying instrumentals don’t make it through until Jack opens the door and heads towards the smell of bacon and eggs.

Bitty smiles at Jack as soon as he enters the kitchen. “Morning, darlin’. If you wanna sit down, your tea should be ready.” Jack smiles back, and does as suggested. The tea is a little too hot to drink still, but Bitty took the teabag out at the perfect time, and Jack doesn’t mind waiting a minute or two.

“Morning. Thank you,” he says a few seconds late, brain still catching up and voice still slow to respond.

Bitty is still at the stove, and doesn’t turn away from his food to look at Jack this time. “No worries, sweetheart. Take your time.” Jack looks down at his tea, breathing slow and easy. Mornings like these are his favorites for a lot of reasons.

Eventually—maybe a minute later? Five minutes? Jack wasn’t paying attention to the time—Bitty pauses the music and turns around with two plates of bacon and eggs, and a mini muffin on each. “Whole wheat,” Bitty says. “Don’t give me that face.” Jack holds his expression still for a moment, not sure whether he actually _was_ making a face or not, but either way it’s funny. Then he smiles and takes his plate.

“Thank you,” he says again, and Bitty rolls his eyes, smiling back.

Bitty hangs up his apron on the hook on the wall by the stove, gets himself a mug of coffee, and sits down across the little table from Jack. “Sleep well, sunshine?”

Jack is already taking a bite of his eggs, but he nods. One bad dream before he’d technically gone to bed anyway doesn’t really count, and he slept fine the rest of the night. He thinks about giving Bitty a look for the _sunshine_ comment, because as usual, one of them absolutely deserves the name and it is not Jack, but that inevitably just results in comments about smiles and Jack doesn’t particularly want him to _stop_ , anyway.

“Quiet, this morning, aren’t you?” Bitty asks rhetorically, eyes dancing, and Jack tilts his head down and closes his eyes momentarily in silent amusement. Technically, yes, if the standard for comparison isn’t Jack literally _any_ morning before he’s been awake for an hour or so. He takes another bite of eggs.

“Eat your muffin, you,” Bitty says, reaching out to fake-slap his hand gently. “We’re having a nice breakfast, you don’t get to just eat eggs and have a smoothie later, you got that?”

Jack raises his eyebrows silently. Bitty rolls his eyes. “ _Fine_ , yes, I’m making smoothies later, but you’re still eating that bacon _and_ the muffin, got it? You had a game yesterday afternoon, I’m this close to making you have seconds of both of those, and don’t think I won’t.”

Jack wouldn’t dream of it.

(Jack would, maybe, dream of showing up at Faber when Bitty is alone there, using the figure skates Jack bought him for his birthday and the last of the private ice time Jack scheduled for him twice a week for all of spring semester because Christmas has never really been Jack’s thing but it matters to Bitty; would, maybe, dream of having his own skates on—hockey skates, not figure skates, though no pads—so he could skate out to meet Bitty at center ice; would, maybe, dream of surprising Bitty, getting down on one knee…)

(That’s a dream for later, though, despite the ring hidden away among his old school supplies, not something to distract him from Bitty’s actual presence in the moment. Right now, they have this, which is more than enough.)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Taylor Swift’s “You Are In Love”, and Bitty sings along to her song “Stay Stay Stay” because idk if y’all’ve noticed but I have _a lot of feelings_ about jack and bitty and taylor swift.
> 
> talk to me on [tumblr](iridescentoracle.tumblr.com/ask) abt omgcp!


End file.
